Around Us 01-17-2008

Published 6:00 pm, Wednesday, January 16, 2008

AMARILLO  Police are investigating claims that an Amarillo High School teacher had improper contact with a student.

The teacher has been placed on paid administrative leave while police and Amarillo ISD officials conduct separate inquiries, district spokeswoman Becky McIlraith said.

Police spokesman Cpl. Jerry Neufeld said the department received a report on the claims Dec. 27. No one has been arrested.

It was not clear when the alleged incident occurred or whether it took place on campus. School district and police officials would not disclose the alleged victim's age or gender.

The nature of the alleged offense would warrant a Class C misdemeanor, the lowest level crime on the books, if charges are brought, Neufeld said. Such a crime does not warrant jail time but is punishable by a maximum $500 fine.  Amarillo Globe-News

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AMARILLO  Texas' sliver of Interstate 40 is only 177 miles long, but authorities say it continues to be a major pipeline for narcotics.

Troopers from the Texas Department of Public Safety seized more than $26 million in marijuana, cocaine and other drugs during busts on the popular highway in 2007, according to departmental data released Wednesday. They also nabbed $3 million in cash they think supported the drug trade.

"These are big numbers," said Trooper Wayne Beighle, a DPS spokesman.

The seizures were the result of a DPS drug interdiction program to crack down on the transportation of narcotics on interstates.

There were 158 seizures on the entire 2,547-mile interstate highway, which stretches from Barstow, Calif., to Wilmington, N.C.

Nationwide, troopers confiscated more than 10,300 pounds of marijuana in 104 seizures, including one traffic stop that netted a 936-pound haul.

Another stop resulted in the seizure of 467 pounds of cocaine valued at $10.5 million. Another led troopers to 121 pounds of heroin worth an estimated $839,000.

The total drug haul for 2007 was the largest since 2004, when $46.8 million in illicit drugs were seized.

In 2006, $20 million in drugs and $3.2 million in currency was intercepted on Texas' segment of I-40.  Amarillo Globe-News

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LUBBOCK  Crime in Lubbock is down more than six percent from 2006, though homicides and burglaries increased in 2007, according to numbers released from the police department Tuesday.

Sgt. Jeff Baker and senior Sgt. John Gomez said the increase is concerning but can't be explained. Still, police have solved 13 of the 2007 killings, Baker said.

The three unsolved homicides are being investigated and police are following leads in each of them, Gomez said.

Officers arrested more than 12,000 people in 2007, Mayor David Miller reported during his State of the City address Tuesday.

Officer visibility has always been a crime deterrent, Dale Holton, assistant chief of the patrol division, said. And officers who take their patrol cars home add to that visibility, helping drive the crime rate down.

Burglaries also increased in 2007, according to police records. There were 3,070 burglaries reported last year, up 2 percent from the 2,697 reported in 2006.

Holton said the crime rate is sort of like the stock market.

"There are a number of things that can make it go up or down."  Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

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LUBBOCK  The pile of marijuana  147.5 pounds of it  was stacked in the courtroom like an illicit game of Tetris, and Tito Marquez didn't win.

A Lubbock County jury on Wednesday convicted Marquez, 60, of possession of between 50 and 2,000 pounds of marijuana.

Marquez is guilty of transporting the nearly 150 pounds of pot from El Paso to Lubbock in July 2006.

Department of Public Safety troopers working on a tip from El Paso pulled Marquez and a partner over after faulty brake lights provided probable cause for a stop, eventually leading to what investigators testified was the largest marijuana bust in Lubbock history.

When the trooper approached the maroon Chevrolet truck, he found open containers of beer, as well as usable amounts of marijuana and cocaine.

After a Lubbock Police Department canine alerted on the bed of the truck, which was filled with tools and other items, investigators searched some oil barrels in which they found false bottoms.

After Marquez's partner showed investigators how to open the containers from the bottom using an Allen wrench, or hex key, they uncovered close to 150 one-pound bricks of marijuana.

Despite Marquez's attorneys' repeated claims that Marquez was an innocent passenger, unwittingly along for the ride with a drug mule, jurors agreed with the prosecution's assertion that Marquez was a drug mule himself, smuggling Mexican weed into Lubbock County for a corrupt criminal organization.

Marquez faces two to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The punishment phase was to begin today.  Lubbock Avalanche-Journal